Economics and financing

The purpose of this project is to provide an assessment of the impacts of the most significant types of road pricing schemes on road use, the economy and community. There has been little empirical research undertaken to gain a comprehensive understanding of how the introduction of road pricing would impact on future road use and traffic patterns in Australia.

The application of direct charging for road use is applied only to a select number of tolled roads across Australasia. Whilst other applications for road pricing such as congestion mitigation measures have been discussed as theoretical measures, there is still little data available on what impacts the application of road pricing would have on motorists’ route choices.

An intended outcome of the project is to provide roads system managers with advice on the technical steps that they would have to instigate to be able to develop price elasticity measures and how they could judge the adequacy of their road use data to calculate such measures. The elasticity (user response to toll charge changes) estimates reviewed by this project can be used as a starting point to simulate the likely impacts for a variety of possible road pricing applications in Australian urban road networks.

1.INTRODUCTION

1.1. Objectives

1.2. Structure of Study

2. RELATED STUDIES

3.RATIONALE FOR ROAD PRICING

3.1. Understanding and Estimating the Demand for Travel

4.DEFINITIONS OF ROAD PRICING SCHEMES

4.1.Area/Zone Charging

4.1.1. Cordon Schemes

4.1.2. Toll Rings

4.1.3. Area Wide Pricing Schemes

4.2.Distance Based Schemes

4.2.1. Heavy Goods Vehicle Charging

4.3. Link Tolling – Toll Roads

4.4. Lane Based Pricing – HOT Lanes

5.ANALYSING THE IMPACTS OF INTRODUCING ROAD PRICING

5.1. Impacts of Pricing Scheme Implementation

5.2.Lessons for Australia from Introducing Road Pricing Schemes

5.2.1. Clear Policy Objectives

5.2.2. Regulatory Framework

5.2.3. Public Acceptance

5.2.4. Scheme Adoption

5.2.5. Technology Application

6.EVALUATING THE OPERATIONAL, ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL IMPACTS OF ROAD PRICING

6.1. Operational Impacts

6.2. Economic Impacts

6.3. Social and Geographic Impacts

6.4.Impacts of Different Pricing Schemes

6.4.1. Tolling

6.4.2. Cordon Pricing

6.4.3. HOT Lanes

7. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

REFERENCES

APPENDIX A LIST OF ORGANISATIONS IDENTIFIED FOR ADDITIONAL DETAILED INFORMATION